Jane made the remark that when you are doing either a one name study or a one place study you usually find something. However when you are looking for families this is not always the case. I thought I would tell you a bit about some detective work I did.

Lynn Carol and I went to Beverley archives for the day. The ladies there were so helpful, even giving us discount vouchers for the tea room. Using FreeBMD I suspected that 2 Chatterton brothers had married 2 Sherburn sisters (although 1 marriage was in Sculthorpes and the other in Howden). Using this parish registers I was able to find quite quickly that this was the case. I then wanted to know more about the parents of the brides John and Mary Sherburn of Howden. Hunt as I may I could not find a record of their marriage in Howden. So I followed the ripple principle. Lynn had a useful map of parishes in the East Riding this establed that the next door parish was Wressle. A quick look at these parish registers found it to be a very small parish with not much acitivity. I found 2 John and Mary Sherburns getting married. However although I could not find a death for Mary 1 I suspect that this was a remarriage. The same church warden was the witness at
both weddings. Problem - John in Howden was a labourer/sawyer and John in Wressle was a farmer. So could I prove that there were 2 John Sherburns? Colin had told us that in 1832 all the able bodied men were sworn in as special constables. So I asked to see the original copes of these records. Lo and behold there was 1 special constable in Wressle called John Sherburn. Next stop the Howden records. Unfortunately these (if they still exist) are not available in Beverley. Howden was a Durham peculiar - in Yorkshire there are several peculiars- so these records are likely to be in Durham and my next job is to write and ask if they hold the record of parish constables for Howden. So some sucess and as always some further action. It does though serve to illustrate the value of using parish records alongside parish registers.